Book Talk: Once A King: The Lost Memoir of Edward VIII with Jane Tippett

The real story of Edward VIII – the King who abdicated the throne in 1936 – told in his own words, using an unpublished memoir and other never seen sources.

Fifteen years after having abdicated the throne to marry the woman he loved – Wallis Simpson – King Edward VIII, now the Duke of Windsor, published his memoirs. But whilst preparing the manuscript for his published and mostly ghostwritten book – which, unlike Prince Harry’s autobiography Spare, largely avoided controversy – the Duke also produced a private manuscript for posterity. This was written in his own words and with an uninhibited frankness.

Once a King: The Lost Memoir of Edward VIII reproduces this uncrowned King’s previously unseen writing, including much that he could or would not write for publication in 1951. Jane Marguerite Tippett weaves together Edward’s writing alongside newly uncovered interviews with the Duke and Duchess, diary entries from ghostwriter Charles Murphy and other sources. Together this forms an extraordinary new portrait of one of the most famous characters in modern royal history and his recollections and innermost feelings, particularly around the abdication of 1936.